Buying A Home
hannahj0
member
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Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
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Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.
Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Realtor for first time homebuyers
Hi everyone! First time on this board.
My husband and I just moved from NC to PA to be closer to family now that we have a baby on the way. We've moved several times in the short amount of time we've been together, and are really looking forward to buying a home and settling down for a while. (Hubby thinks we will never, ever move again..but I don't see that as reality).
Anyway, we've been looking for about a month. I know that's not a long time, but we've been searching realtor.com for a while now, and every weekend for that month has been jam packed with appts to see houses and open houses. We would really like to be moved by January (actually, before the holidays) since baby is due February. We've gone to the bank and had them help us with a realtor. I guess this is where I watch too much HGTV. How much "help" is the realtor supposed to be?? The guy is nice, but we have been doing all of the searching online to find houses we want to see and he just sets up the appointment.
Is this not how it works in real life?: I always thought you met with your realtor, gave lists of must-haves and "would-be-nice"'s and the realtor helped find homes you might like. I thought based on a couple houses you might say you like, he would set up appointments for you on homes that are similar. If a house you seemed interested in after walking through gets an offer from someone else, he would let you know so you could make an offer as well..or at least not drag your feet any longer. I thought since we're on a "time crunch" he'd be more aggressive in helping the search move along.
(Sorry if this is long by the way). I feel like we've found a couple of houses we *like*, but I struggle with "this is ok for now" and husbands idea of "this is the house we'll be in for a LONG time". I feel like we've found good options but want to keep looking, or don't know when it's time to stop looking. I feel like our realtor doesn't do anything for us. Do we just need to ask him to step it up? Or is that not how realtors work?
My husband and I just moved from NC to PA to be closer to family now that we have a baby on the way. We've moved several times in the short amount of time we've been together, and are really looking forward to buying a home and settling down for a while. (Hubby thinks we will never, ever move again..but I don't see that as reality).
Anyway, we've been looking for about a month. I know that's not a long time, but we've been searching realtor.com for a while now, and every weekend for that month has been jam packed with appts to see houses and open houses. We would really like to be moved by January (actually, before the holidays) since baby is due February. We've gone to the bank and had them help us with a realtor. I guess this is where I watch too much HGTV. How much "help" is the realtor supposed to be?? The guy is nice, but we have been doing all of the searching online to find houses we want to see and he just sets up the appointment.
Is this not how it works in real life?: I always thought you met with your realtor, gave lists of must-haves and "would-be-nice"'s and the realtor helped find homes you might like. I thought based on a couple houses you might say you like, he would set up appointments for you on homes that are similar. If a house you seemed interested in after walking through gets an offer from someone else, he would let you know so you could make an offer as well..or at least not drag your feet any longer. I thought since we're on a "time crunch" he'd be more aggressive in helping the search move along.
(Sorry if this is long by the way). I feel like we've found a couple of houses we *like*, but I struggle with "this is ok for now" and husbands idea of "this is the house we'll be in for a LONG time". I feel like we've found good options but want to keep looking, or don't know when it's time to stop looking. I feel like our realtor doesn't do anything for us. Do we just need to ask him to step it up? Or is that not how realtors work?
Re: Realtor for first time homebuyers
The realtor we worked with sent us all new listings. If something interested us, we called her and she set up the appointment.
HGTV makes it look like the realtor has only one client, where in reality they usually have a number of people the are working with at the same time.
When to stop looking - when you find something that meets your criteria in the location you want at the price you want and the house "feels right" to you.
(Our first house took up 6 months to find and the second house 4 years - but I live in a small area with low inventory for what I wanted).
Your realtor will help you thru the process, work with the seller's agent, give guidance on options available to you, be YOUR advocate in negotiations, and see that the legal paperwork etc is properly filed. It is more than showing homes.
Whether or not you're "done" looking depends on whether or not you've found a house that you purchase. That is a decision that only you and your husband can make - even the most amazing realtor in the world can't make that decision for you.
Just because you put an offer on a house, it doesn't mean you stop looking. We didn't take a break from looking until we were officially under contract (sometimes the sellers wait a few days after you make the offer to decide whether or not they accept it). Even then, we kept one eye on the online listings, just in case the contract fell through (first contract did).
Once you find one that you want to put an offer on you have two options:
---have your realtor pull comps (comparable houses in the area that are selling) to make sure the price is fair. Have him see what other information he can gather - are there other offers, is there a seller's disclosure, was it previously under contract (and if so - why did it fall through) etc. Your realtor won't do this on every house that you view. Once you're interested in making an offer on a house, request for him to do the additional research for you (and in general - no - he won't keep tabs on every house that you looked at to let you know if other offers have been placed. You let him know if you're interested, and he'll do the research for you when you ask for it). This will take time, so he might not get back to you until the next day. Once you have all of the information, you decide whether or not to make an offer. Drawing up the contract also takes time.
---Or, if you are sure that you absolutely love it, have your realtor immediately draw up a contract for you to sign. Sometimes, even if there are other offers on a house, a seller will wait 2 or 3 days to collect more offers, so they can pick the best one. BUT, sometimes sellers immediately accept the first offers that they receive, and unless the listing agent gives him a heads up (which he might not), your realtor will have no way of knowing how fast you have to act. We didn't act fast enough for one house that I loved, and we lost it.
Since you're looking for a house that's good for "now" and your husband is looking for a house that's good "forever," it might be good to get your priorities for house hunting on the same page. After every day of looking, my husband and I would look at the list of houses we saw, and evaluate each one. Houses that we knew we wouldn't want got crossed off. Houses that were just okay got left on the list as we mulled over whether or not we did or didn't like them (we eventually decided that we didn't like any of them). Houses that we did like - that day we requested more details from our realtor, and generally by the next day we were ready to make an offer. I think the house we purchased was our 6th attempted offer. Some offers were rejected, some were countered and we rejected the counter, and some we were juuuuuuust a little too late for.
Once you are under contract, that's when your realtor's real work begins. Right now, you have to do a lot of the work, to research what houses you do/don't want to view. And be up front with your realtor. If there's a house that you like, let him know you want more information about it. If after you see it, you don't think it's worth making an offer, then it probably means that you need to keep looking.